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Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Mystical Disney

The identification between creator and creature, elimination of all distance, is the fundamental religious ceremony. In the speech on the occasion of Mickey Mouse's Twentieth Birthday,(Disney Treasures) Walt Disney, titanic and humble at the same time, reveals his ownintegrity in rendering the great and the small inextricably: He compares the endlessness of inspiration the Mouse was for the public in all levels (“I often find myself surprised with what has been said about our redoubtable little Mickey, who was never really a mouse, nor yet wholly a man, although always recognizably human, I hope. Psychoanalysis has probed him, wise men of critical inclination have pondered him…admirers have saluted him in extravagant terms. The league of Nations gave him a special medal as a symbol of international good will…”) to the humbleness of purpose in the creation of the character: “…But all we ever intended for him and expected of him was that he should continue to make people everywhere chuckle with him and at him, we didn’t burden him with any social symbolism, we made him no mouth piece for frustration or harsh satire. Mickey was simply a little personality assigned to the purposes of laughter” (From the book From Mars to Marceline, by Eleonora Duvivier)